updated 03:10 pm EDT, Wed July 23, 2008

Zune Tattoo Fan Gives Up

Microsoft's most ardent supporter of the Zune is giving up on the player despite having gone to the extent of receiving three Zune-themed tattoos, according to a statement by the fan himself. Having earned a reputation as one of the most avid early adopters, Steven Smith now says he will hide the tattoos and largely exit the community after disappointment at the lack of changes both to the Zune itself as well as to integration between the Microsoft-designed player and to integration with the Xbox 360, which shares the same points system but doesn't let users share videos between formats.

"I have had the Zune since day 1 and have noticed little improvement," Smith says. "I have tried my best to support them every step of the way but the recent Xbox Live announcement at E3 made me lose it."

The fan adds that he's likely to buy the third-generation Zune expected at the end of this year but admits that he may use "some of the competiton" in the meantime.

While the gesture itself is largely symbolic, it reflects a public frustration with the player expressed by both some fans and potential buyers, many of whom have criticized Microsoft for relatively conservative updates to the player since it was introduced in November 2006. The device still misses support for audiobooks and movies, and just received official TV show support in-store as of May 2008, roughly two and a half years after the first TV shows became available through iTunes.

Microsoft for its part has continued to pledge support for the Zune and this year stepped up its update schedule, releasing a mid-year update rather than only adding features when new hardware appears in the fall. The company has said that it will ultimately introduce a touchscreen and other new features to the Zune, but has yet to commit to any particular timeframe.

But seriously, did he expect M$ would suddenly change? Here's a clue: M$ intros a new OS, and it doesn't support the Zune on release.

M$ has a lot of products and that's great, but they have no one looking at the bigger picture, ie they all have their own dept. heads. Jobs is that guy for Apple, he's involved with the overall experience of each product and gets the integration thing. Ballmer should be that at M$ - whether that speaks to Ballmer himself or to the M$ corporate mentality is anyone's guess.

Microsoft has discontinued almost every piece of hardware they have ever made, and dropped support for it soon after. Anymore remember the Microsoft networking stuff. Remember the phone they had out. It is just a matter of time before this too becomes discontinued.

Wow, why support Zune especially this early in it's existence when it hasn't done anything? The iPod has an established culture and following. You gotta really love MS to get tattoos. Which I don't understand since MS is not exactly synonymous with counter culture. Getting tattoos of a Zune? That's like, oh I don't know, as one comedian said... taking a BIC lighter in for repairs.

I know a lot of people and quite a few families.Not one person has bought as Zune for themselvesor for their kids or given one away as a gift. I asked.

I do know one person who has a Zune, but they didn'tbuy it - they were given an 8GB black unit by an ad co.to become a "Zuneologist" to spread a "good" word.To date they've never used it, instead use their iPod.

I switched from the ipod to a zune, and couldn't be happier, I even bought my wife one. The battery life is better, interface is better mostly because I hate touch "stuff" it's easier on the zune to scroll thourgh large amounts of music, and wireless sync rules. I like the zune sofware better than itunes, and media center recorded show sync is the best! You can't judge if you don't own both.

First off, it ticks me off to see so many children post comments regarding the Zune (bashing) when they have never used one for any length of time. That type of behavior just invalidates those comments. Having said that...

I have owned a red Zune 30 and returned it when I couldn't get support for East Asian fonts on the hardware. I like the machine and it sounds very nice, but the lack of Japanese, Chinese and Korean ended my love affair with the Zune.

Later, the black Zune 80 and the green Zune 8 came into my life and I was very impressed by the hardware and sound quality..........BUT!!!! After speaking with the folks at Microsoft it was apparent that MS has NO INTENTION of supporting unicode on the Zune anytime in the near future. No Japanese, etc support, no Zune.

So I took them back and bought the iPod Touch. It doesn't sound as good as the Zune, but I have to be in a very quiet environment to be able to tell the difference.

If only MS would LISTEN to what its customers want instead of TELLING its customers what they want MS might have a chance.